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Available on: PS2

Why Kingdom Hearts II is one of the greatest games ever made

Celebrating the series’ best, most important entry

Words: on July 25, 2012
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95 comments

  • fourteenaha - July 25, 2012 12:23 p.m.

    Just to be different, I agree. I have such fond memories of this game and also KH1, really wanted to see KH3 on consoles so was a bit annoyed when they took the handheld route. It lost me slightly as to what I was supposed to play after 2. Also, dream drop distance, what does that even mean? 358/2 days, what does that even mean? birth by sleep, what does that even mean? But yeah, the game itself I absolutely love. Lent it to someone and never got it back sadly.

  • Cyberninja - July 25, 2012 1:24 p.m.

    Minor Spoilers ahead. Dream Drop Distance means that they(Sora and Riku) are in the world of Dreams, Drop is the way they travel into different worlds, and Distance is to show they are separated. 358/2 days means that Roxas spent 358 days with Organization XIII and the /2 reflects that Xion was his other half because she was Sora's memories. Birth By Sleep means a few different things but the most important is Terra's heart is trapped(or asleep) which gave birth to Xehenort. The games did get alot better after 2 with BBS being my personally favorite since I haven't played 3D yet.

  • fourteenaha - July 25, 2012 3:25 p.m.

    Thanks!

  • Cyberninja - July 25, 2012 4:40 p.m.

    Your welcome, but if you want to know where to start after 2 just play BbS which is the prequel to everything for psp and DDD the sequel to 2, which leads directly into 3(I don't know personally I read it in a review)

  • Sjoeki - July 25, 2012 12:17 p.m.

    I thought the story of KH 1 was fine as it was and I really enjoyed the game though the island part might have been a bit to long and yeah gummi ships... they suck. KH 2? It tried so hard to be so much more then the first one but for me it didn't have to, I liked it, but it didn't get close to the first one for me.

  • Moondoggie1157 - July 25, 2012 12:13 p.m.

    Golly, holy haterade of hades, Batman! (huh huh see what I did there? ah, fuck you) Being a virgin to Kingdom Hearts, I guess I really don't have a say here... Regardless, I really wish I would have gotten into the series sooner, I'm gonna give it all a go, obviously. I'd feel like a complete ass if I didn't (yea, it's one of those things). Honestly everyone, lighten up a bit... GR has become such a gloomy place lately, at least in the comment section... I'm as guilty as the rest, but hey, that gives me the right to say something.

  • sparanda - July 25, 2012 11:59 a.m.

    Signed up for this one comment because 2 things in the article bug me. 1. The handheld games are not "spin-offs." They're as much a part of the main story as the PS2 games, no matter how much people gripe, moan, or complain about them. And this is coming from someone that believes Chain of Memories was that only one of the handheld set (aside from DDD) that was required to explain the established plot. 2. You cannot summon Genie while fighting Sephiroth, and I'm appalled someone who apparently loves this game so much got that wrong.

  • Divine Paladin - July 25, 2012 11:39 a.m.

    Is GR really going to do this? I can make the case that ET is one of the best games ever, too, but I'm not going to because A) Nobody cares and B) it'd just waste my time. Then again, they're probably getting paid, so the more power to 'em!

  • BladedFalcon - July 25, 2012 11:31 a.m.

    Um... Nope, sorry, but the story actually got WORSE in comparison to the first and chain of memories. It brought out too many of pointless characters to pad out and convolute an otherwise pretty simple story. Also, the gameplay got better? try easier. Sure, it added a lot of cool new mechanics in paper, but all of these are completely unnecessary when the game is so easy that you can breeze trough most of it by just mashing the attack button. And this isn't an exageration, there's people that have completed entire sections of the game by facing backwards from the screen. It's a fun enough game, sure, but one of the greatest out there? not a chance, at least in my opinion.

  • Lurkero - July 25, 2012 11:43 a.m.

    I agree. The KH story has only been in decline for me. Way more convoluted than something I would tolerate. While there were many things added to the combat, a lot felt unnecessary because it was not getting more challenging.

  • thomasratzo - July 25, 2012 11:57 a.m.

    Not saying that it is the hardest game ever, but have you ever tried KH2 Final Mix? With it came the addition of Critical Mode and believe me it WAS hard especially in the beggining where you don't have Glide. And yes the story was simple but is simple what you really want? When they added Kingdom hearts 2 it went from sora trying to save the world to a whole new story that goes way from the past and adds more characters obviously to keep it interesting. Right now 10 years after i started this series and i still can't fully understand all the aspects of the series whole story. Especially the Ven-Roxas-Sora connection for me it was a mystery for at least 3 months. Yet when i realized their connection and generally the whole story behind the game it made me realize that it really is a masterpiece and the developers have made me anxious about what will happen next.Personally even though KH3D just came out i can't wait for the next entry in the series.

  • BladedFalcon - July 25, 2012 12:10 p.m.

    If after 10 years you haven't been able to understand a story, then it only goes to show how needlessly convoluted it is. Specially because it's not like it's tackling deep, complicated themes of philosophy or religion or science, the convolution in the game ultimately only serves to try and make the story of the series as more complex than it really is. And I'm sorry, adding more nonsense and characters doesn't make your universe "deep", it only makes it a mess, just like the pirates of the Caribbean franchise also showed. Also, if you had to re-release your game to make it harder, then it only goes to show you got it wrong, and way too easy for the first time.

  • KnowYourPokemon - July 25, 2012 12:13 p.m.

    I really have to disagree, but opinions tend to work like that. It was nice to see something different from something with Disney characters. As much as I love Disney movies they tend to be way too simple and just be a story of good vs. evil. And seriously having played through the original Kingdom Hearts and the 2nd not too long ago it's not really difficult. The final fight was more difficult (mostly just dragged out, but still more difficult) than the final fight in KH2 but other than that KH2 improved on everything from mechanics to story. I'll never get the convoluted story bit either, if you know the story of the games instead of just ignoring the side games it's not difficult to understand the story at all...

  • thomasratzo - July 25, 2012 1:03 p.m.

    What I meant about the story is that there are still aspects of it that haven't been revealed when you thought they were gonna be.And Final Mix didn't just add a harder difficulty but also implemented fights with all of the organization XII which made the game even more fun to play.Also they put in the battle with Terra's lingering spirit which at the time made us all wonder who this guy is and what impact does he have to the story and when we learned who he was it made us wonder why was he still here.See that's the thing about this series.Even when you have it all figured out it makes you wonder what everyone's role is and makes you think about scenarios. And I gotta agree with KnowYourPokemon, once you see the story from all the games it's not that hard to comprehend, every hero makes sense in his own way and none is useless and I really mean that, I believe that even the smallest character in that game(aside from Disney's) plays his own role in the progression of the story. And in my opinion a story is better when it is complex. When it is simple it makes you lose interest. I mean in most of the games it is just good vs evil yet here it is even deeper. To tell you the truth to this day i don't think the OrgXIII is evil. And of course it wouldn't involve serious matters such as religion or science it's a kids game :P. Anyway even though there are some parts of the gameplay that i didn't like (speaking about the other KH games too)the story itself in my opinion is magnificent and a brain-teaser that makes you think about the character and not just about beating it

  • thomasratzo - July 25, 2012 1:06 p.m.

    Sorry for the wall of text :D

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